Sir Within could not persuade Mademoiselle to accept his invitation for
herself and her pupils to dinner, and was about to take his leave, when
Ada suddenly said, “Why not dine with us, Sir Within?”
“Fi! donc, Mademoiselle!” broke in the governess. “How could you think
of such a thing? Sir Within Wardle sit down to a schoolroom dinner!”
“But why need it be a schoolroom dinner, Mademoiselle Heinzleman? Why
not tell cook that we mean to have company to-day, and make Bickards
wait on us, and tell George to wear his gloves, just as if papa were at
home?”
“Oh” broke in Sir Within, “I have seen quite enough--more than
enough--of all that, dear Ada; but if I could be permitted to join your
own little daily dinner of the schoolroom, as you call it, that would
really be a treat to me.”
“I invite you, then!” said Ada. “Mademoiselle owes me a favour for that
wonderful German theme I wrote, and I take this as my reward. We dine at
three, Sir Within, and, I warn you, on mutton-broth and mutton something
else; but Kate and I will make ourselves as fine as we may, and be as
entertaining as possible.”
While the two girls scampered off, laughing merrily at the discomfiture
of the governess, that respectable lady remained to offer profuse
apologies to Sir Within for the liberty, childish though it was, that
had been taken with him, and to excuse herself from any imputation of
participating in it.
She little knew, indeed, with what honest sincerity he had accepted the
proposal. Of the great game of life, as played by fine people, he had
seen it to satiety. He was thoroughly wearied of all the pleasures of
the table, as he was of all the captivations which witty conveners
and clever talkers can throw over society. Perhaps, from his personal
experience, he knew how artificial such displays are--how studied the
à propos, how carefully in ambush the impromptu--and that he longed for
the hearty, healthful enjoyment of young, fresh, joyous natures, just as
one might turn from the oppressive odours of a perfumer’s shop to taste
with ecstasy the fresh flowers of a garden. It was, therefore, as he
expressed it to the governess, a perfect fête to him to assist at that
little dinner, and he was deeply honoured by the invitation.
Mademoiselle was charmed with the old Baronet’s politeness. It was
ceremonious enough even for Germany, he smiled so blandly and bowed so
reverently, and often it was like a memory of the Fatherland just to
listen to him; and, indeed, it was reassuring to her to hear from him
that he had once been a Minister at the Court of a Herzog, and had
acquired his “moden” in this true and legitimate fashion. And thus
did they discuss for hours “aesthetic,” and idealism, and sympathy,
mysterious affinity, impulsive destiny, together with all the realisms
which the Butter-brod life of Germany can bring together, so that when
she arose to dress for dinner, she could not help muttering to herself,
as she went, that he was “a deeply skilled in the human heart-and-far
acquainted with the mind’s operations--but not the less on that account
a fresh-with-a-youthful sincerity-endowed man.”
The dinner, though not served in the schoolroom, was just as simple as
Ada promised, and she laughingly asked Sir Within if he preferred his
beer frothed or still, such being the only choice of liquor afforded
him.
“Mademoiselle is shocked at the way we treat you,” said she, laughing,
“but I have told her that your condescension would be ill repaid if we
made any attempt to lessen its cost, and it must be a ‘rice-pudding day’
in your life.”
And how charmingly they talked, these two girls! Ada doing the honours
as a hostess, and Kate, as the favoured friend, who aided her to
entertain an honoured guest. They told him, too, how the fresh bouquet
that decked the table had been made by themselves to mark the sense they
had of his presence, and that the coffee had been prepared by their own
hands.
“Now, do say, Sir Within, that dining with Royal Highnesses and Supreme
Somethings is but a second-rate pleasure compared to an Irish stew in
a schoolroom, and a chat round a fire that has been lighted with
Bonnycastle’s Algebra. Yes, Mademoiselle,” Kate said, “I had to make
light of simple equations for once! I was thinking of that story of the
merchant, who lighted his fire with the King’s bond when his Majesty
deigned to dine with him. I puzzled my head to remember which of our
books lay nearest our heart, and I hesitated long between Ollendorff and
Bonnycastle.”
“And what decided you?” asked Sir Within.
“What so often decides a doubt--convenience. Bonnycastle had the worst
binding, and was easier to burn.”
“If you so burn to study algebra, Mademoiselle,” said the governess, who
had misunderstood the whole conversation, “you must first show yourself
more ‘eifrig’--how you call zeal?--for your arithmetic.”
“You shall have full liberty, when you pay me a visit, to burn all the
volumes on such subjects you find,” said Sir Within.
“Oh, I’d go through the whole library,” cried Kate, eagerly, “if I could
only find one such as Garret O’Moore did.”
“I never heard of his fortune.”
“Nor I. Do tell it, Kate.”
“Mademoiselle has forbidden all my legends,” said she, calmly.
“I’m sure,” said Sir Within, “she will recal the injunction for this
time.”
“It is very short,” said Kate; and then with infinite archness, turning
to the governess, added, “and it has a moral.”
The governess nodded a grave permission, and the other began:
“There was once on a time a great family in the west of Ireland called
the O’Moores, who, by years of extravagance, spent everything they had
in the world, leaving the last of the name, a young man, so utterly
destitute, that he had scarcely food to eat, and not a servant to wait
on him. He lived in a lonely old house, of which the furniture had been
sold off, bit by bit, and nothing remained but a library of old books,
which the neighbours did not care for.”
“Algebras and Ollendorff’s, I suppose,” whispered Sir Within; and she
smiled and went on:
“In despair at not finding a purchaser, and pinched by the cold of the
long winter’s nights, he used to bring an armful of them every night
into his room to make his fire. He had not, naturally, much taste for
books or learning, but it grieved him sorely to do this; he felt it like
a sort of sacrilege, but he felt the piercing cold more, and so he gave
in. Well, one night, as he brought in his store, and was turning over
the leaves--which he always did before setting fire to them--he came
upon a little square volume, with the strangest letters ever he saw;
they looked like letters upside down, and gone mad, and some of them
were red, and some black, and some golden, and between every page of
print there was a sheet of white paper without anything on it. O’Moore
examined it well, and at last concluded it must have been some old
monkish chronicle, and that the blank pages were left for commentaries
on it. At all events, it could have no interest for him, as he couldn’t
read it, and so he put it down on the hearth till he wanted it to burn.
“It was close on midnight, and nothing but a few dying embers were on
the hearth, and no other light in the dreary room, when he took up the
old chronicle, and tearing it in two, threw one half on the fire.
[Illustration: 228]
The moment he did so the flame sprang up bright as silver, lighting
up the whole room, so that he could see even the old cobwebs on the
ceiling, that had not been seen for yean and years, and at the same time
a delicious music filled the air, and the sounds of children’s voices
singing beautifully; but, strangest of all, in the very middle of the
bright fire that now filled the whole hearth, there sat a little man
with a scarlet cloak on him, and a scarlet hat and a white feather in
it, and he smiled very graciously at O’Moore, and beckoned him over to
him, but O’Moore was so frightened and so overcome he couldn’t stir.
At last, as the flames got lower, the Tittle man’s gestures grew more
energetic, and O’ Moore crept down on his knees, and said, “‘Do you want
anything with me, Sir?’”
“‘Yes, Garret,’ said the little man,: ‘I want to be your friend, and to
save you from ruin like the rest of your family. You were wrong to burn
that book.’
“‘But I couldn’t read it,’ said Garret; ‘what use was it to me?’
“‘It was your own life, Garret O’Moore,’ said the little man, ‘and take
care that you keep the part you have there, and study it carefully. It
would have been, better for you if you had kept the whole of it.’
“And with that the flame sprang brightly up for a second or two, and
then went black out, so that O’Moore had to grope about to find tinder
to strike a light. He lit the only bit of candle he had, and began to
examine the part of the book that remained, and what did he find but
on every blank page there was a line--sometimes two--written as if to
explain the substance of the printed page, and all in such a way as to
show it was somebody’s life, and adventures--as, for instance: ‘Takes
to the sea--goes to America--joins an expedition to the Far West--on
the plantations--marries--wife dies---off to China--marries again.’ I
needn’t go on: everything that was ever to happen to him was written
there till he was forty-five years of age, the rest was burned; but it
was all fortunate--all, to the very end. He grew to be very rich, and
prospered in everything, for whenever he was faint-hearted or depressed,
he always said, ‘It wasn’t by being low and weak of heart that I begun
this career of good fortune, and I must be stout and of high courage if
I mean to go on with it.’ And he grew so rich that he bought back all
the old acres of the O’Moores, and they have a hand rescuing a book from
the flames on their arms till this day.”
“And the moral?--where’s the moral?” asked the governess.
“The moral, the moral!” said Kate, dubiously. “Well, I’m not exactly
sure where it is, but I suppose it is this; that it’s far better to go
to sea as a sailor than to sit down and burn your father’s library.”
“I have a notion, my dear Kate, that you yourself would like well to
have a peep into destiny--am I wrong?”
“I would, Sir.”
“And you, Ada?”
“Why should _she?_” broke in Kate, eagerly; and then, as though shocked
at her impetuosity, she went on, in a lower voice: “Ada makes her voyage
in a three-decker, _I_ am only clinging to a plank.”
“No, no, dearest,” said Ada, tenderly; “don’t say that.”
“Mademoiselle is looking at her watch,” said Sir Within, “and I must
accept the signal.” And though she protested, elaborately too, that it
was a mere habit with her, he arose to ring for his carriage. “I am not
going without the sketch you promised me, Ada,” said he--“the pencil
sketch of the old fountain.”
“Oh, Kate’s is infinitely better. I am ashamed to see mine after it.”
“Why not let me have both?”
“Yes,” said the governess, “that will be best. I’ll go and fetch them.”
Ada stood for a moment irresolute, and then muttering, “Mine is really
too bad,” hastened out of the room after Mademoiselle Heinzle-man.
“You are less merry than usual, Kate,” said Sir Within, as he took her
hand and looked at her with interest. “What is the reason?”
A faint, scarce perceptible motion of her brow was all she made in
answer.
“Have you not been well?”
“Yes, Sir. I am quite well.”
“Have you had news that has distressed you?”
“Where from?” asked she, hurriedly.
“From your friends--from home.”
“Don’t you know, Sir, that I have neither!”
“I meant, my dear child--I meant to say, that perhaps you had heard or
learned something that gave you pain.”
“Yes, Sir,” broke she in, “that is it. Oh, if I could tell you----”
“Why not write it to me, dear child?”
“My writing is coarse and large, and I misspell words; and, besides, it
is such a slow way to tell what one’s heart is full of--and then I’d do
it so badly,” faltered she out with pain.
“Suppose, then, I were to settle some early day for you all to come over
to Dalradern; you could surely find a moment to tell me then?”
“Yes, Sir--yes,” cried she; and, seizing his hand, she kissed it
passionately three or four times.
“Here they are,” said Ada, merrily--“here they are! And if Kate’s does
ample justice to your beautiful fountain, mine has the merit of showing
how ugly it might have been. Isn’t this hideous?”
After a few little pleasant common-places, Sir Within turned to
Mademoiselle Heinzleman, and said: “I have rather an interesting book
at Dalradern; at least, it would certainly have its interest for
you, Mademoiselle. It is a copy of ‘Clavigo,’ with Herder’s marginal
suggestions. Goethe had sent it to him for his opinion, and Herder
returned it marked and annotated. You will do me an infinite favour to
accept it.”
“Ach Gott!” said the governess, perfectly overwhelmed with the thought
of such a treasure.
“Well, then, if the weather be fine on Tuesday, Mademoiselle, will you
and my young friends here come over and dine with me? We shall say
three o’clock for dinner, so that you need not be late on the road. My
carriage will be here to fetch you at any hour you appoint.”
A joyous burst of delight from Ada, and a glance of intense gratitude
from Kate, accompanied the more formal acceptance of the governess; and
if Sir Within had but heard one tithe of the flattering things that were
said of him, as he drove away, even his heart, seared as it was, would
have been touched.
Kate, indeed, said least; but when Ada, turning abruptly to her, asked,
“Don’t you love him?” a slight colour tinged her cheek, as she said, “I
think he’s very kind, and very generous, and very-------”
“Go on, dear--go on,” cried Ada, throwing her arm around her--“finish;
and very what?”
“I was going to say an impertinence,” whispered she, “and I’ll not.”
“Nine o’clock, young ladies, and still in the drawing-room!” exclaimed
the governess, in a tone of reproach. “These are habits of dissipation,
indeed--come away. Ach Gott! der Clavigo!” muttered she, with clasped
hands. And the girls were hardly able to restrain a burst of laughter at
the fervour of her voice and manner.